4 Chapter 4: The Start Of Training

The next morning, Dana went to the field that served as the practice area for the children trying to join the Adventurer Assaciation. It was basically a field that was originally intended for growing wheat or other similar types of grain but was mowed down to make an area with sufficient space to train.

When Dana arrived, she was quite surprised to see Mary standing with the rest, warming up while talking with the rest of the children.

In total, there were fifteen children: nine boys and six girls, Dana and Mary included, all around 12-14 years old. Dana joined them and started her warm-ups as well.

After a while, a middle-aged man with black hair and blue eyes in leather and metal armor with a sword attached to his hip arrived at the training grounds. It seems this was the trainer assigned to the orphanage by the Adventurer Association.

He walked up to the group and noticed two new faces.

'The brown-haired girl must be Dana who Father Alexander informed me about, then the blonde should be Mary, right?'

"Dana and Mary, right?" seeing the two girl nodding, he continued "My name is Bratt and I will be your instructor starting from now on. Do you girls need an introduction about the Adventurer Association?" he asked.

Mary shook her head while Dana nodded. To be honest, they all did learn about it but she never really paid too much attention since she thought it wasn't very important for a Sister of the CHurch to know about it.

"Very well," he began, "the Adventurer Association is the collective name for the different guilds at which you can register and complete contract and requests for. Those different guilds are respectively the Hunter's Guild, the Mage Guild, the Swordsman Guild and the Bounty Hunter's Guild. They all work together to complete request but they don't all hunt the same thing, as per the names. When you complete request you gain two things: one is the questc reward, this can both be in monetary gain or an item, and the other is Guild Points. With these points you can gain a higher rank and standing in the Association and you gain more privileges in the buildings associated with the Adventurer Association or shops or other businesses allied with them. Is this fine as an introduction?"

"Yes sir, thank you" Dana responded.

"Good. Now, I have been told that you two are to be trained as a mage and a fighter respectively, but I don't know what specific branch in your respective profession is going to be."

"I would like to mainly focus on being a Combat Mage and learn attack spells but I would still like to learn low-level healing spells for emergencies." Mary immediately responded to which he nodded.

Dana on the other hand still needed a bit of time to think about what she wanted to be in the future. After some deliberation, she raided her head and responded: "I would like to be trained as an unarmed fighter."

"Any particular reason as to why you want to be a Pugilist?"

"Because I want to be able to fight without the need for a weapon so that I can always fight back. Plus, it goes well together with throwing knives. No fumbling around with your weapon and all."

He nodded. "Got it. Well, let's just begin with your body training. After that we'll see if you're ready to start training with fighting techniques."

She nodded and joined with the other the side of the field to start running. This was to see how good their endurance was opposed to the others that were already training for a while. Mary was as he expected it to be and was exhausted after a while, but Dana could easily keep up with them and even competed with them for first place.

'How comes she can keep up with them even when she is a beginner? She should have had no prior training. Well, at least Mary is still normal.'

After that, they continued with weight training and he tested their reflexes as well. Dana continued to outperform his expectations. She didn't even seem to break a sweat, this was just abnormal.

'Well, Father Alexander did tell me she wasn't a normal child but still, what did she eat to grow up and have this sort of power?'

"Alright, that's enough. A few minutes of rest. After that take your respective training weapons and come to the middle of the training field. Dana, you should try and find a pair of gauntlets fit for training purposes that you like at this town's Adventurer's Guild, but do it after today's training. I'll try and teach you a few techniques that are still possible to perform without the weight of the gauntlets."

"Alright." she nodded. She at least where this town's Adventurer's Guild was. Only Major cities and towns got a guild building for every branch next to the Adventurer guild. The smaller places only got a Adventurer Guild, if they got anything at all.

After that they continued to train in their respective weapon choices while the children that chose magic as their respective path were trained by a mage that came while they were doing their body training. Dana on the other hand, was shown the ropes by Bratt personally.

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Mary fell onto her bed and grunted out loud before turning to the chuckling Dana who also came in and sat on her bed that stood besides Mary's.

"Shut up. Not everybody has a monstrous body like yours. Ugh, why do we magicians even need to train our body like that? My whole body is aching right now."

"It's so that you won't be totally helpless when your mana has run dry and be killed without even being able to defend yourself." one of the other girls who trained beside them responded.

"Ugh, I knew that but that doesn't mean I should like it Melissa." Mary responded, her body still in pain.

Melissa was a girl of about 14 years old who chose to be a warrior and to fight with a two-handed sword surprisingly. It was surprising because she didn't look like she would even be able to lift the sword. She had black hair and eyes and she looked like she had worked a single day in her life. She looked like she would break by blowing at her but when she picked up her sword, she would gain some sort of illusion of a savage aura around her and she would swing her weapon with great strength and precision.

"Hahaha, yes, that's true isn't it. By the way Dana, what is your body made of? You would be a terrifying opponent in the future with your strength and stamina when you gain some techniques. I hope we can spar later." Melissa laughed before turning to Dana and asking her with a bloodthirsty grin.

The two only had a single thought after this: 'Oh dear, a battle junkie. Just great...'

They talked for a while before going to sleep. Even if her body had monstrous stamina and strength, it didn't mean that her mind was the same. She was exhausted as well.

Melissa chuckled a little while seeing the two girls falling fast asleep before joining them. Tomorrow was going to be another long day and she needed the rest.